


Here's Another Clue For You All (The Walrus Was —)

by fizzyblogic (phizzle)



Category: All-American Rejects
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, WIP Amnesty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-23
Updated: 2011-02-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phizzle/pseuds/fizzyblogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is one I didn't write much of, but had a bigger idea for and only got a bit into the beginning. Written 2007. AU wherein Tyson never worked the door at the party he met Nick at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Here's Another Clue For You All (The Walrus Was —)

Tyson was early to football practice that day. As soon as Gregory rounded the corner of the building, Tyson jogged over and said, “Sorry I didn’t make it to the party last night.”

“Where were you, man? I was counting on you to man the door, had to end up roping Fisher in.”

“Yeah. Funny story.” Tyson scratched the back of his head and squinted against the sun. “My dad said I couldn’t go.”

“You didn’t just sneak out?” Gregory snorted. Tyson sighed.

“No, see, I _tried_. But it was this huge deal to Dad, father-sons bonding time or whatever, wouldn’t hardly let me out of his sight. I would’ve called, ’cept I don’t know your number.”

Gregory whirled him into a headlock. “It’s alright, I’ll just ask some other wuss to be on the door next time. No sweat.”

“I’m not a _wuss_.” Tyson broke out of the headlock and twisted Gregory into one. He may still be in middle school, compared to Gregory’s _sophomore_ status, but Tyson was taller. And bigger. “My dad’s just being lame.”

“Uh huh.” Gregory ducked and wriggled out of the headlock and punched Tyson on the arm. “I gotta go get my sister. You coming to Arby’s after practice, or will your dad stop you doing that too?”

“Jackass.” Tyson punched him back.

“So, you coming? Arby’s? The gang?”

“Sure thing, sugar ray.” Tyson shot him a grin. Gregory punched him a little harder, nearer the elbow.

“I told you to stop calling me that. Makes you sound gay.”

Tyson rolled his eyes. “Pfft. Whatever, dude. Catch you later, bring your sister.”

“You’re a jerk, Ritter.” Gregory walked backwards off the field and over to where a girl in Tyson’s grade was waiting, glancing at her watch. She waved shyly at Tyson, and he waved back with a bright smile.

===*===

Nick was at Arby’s, like everyone else, because he had no place better to be. His sister was trying to do homework in the next booth over, and really, there weren’t many seats left _in_ here, but he knew if he sat with her she’d get snappy and he’d get bored. He saw some guys from his grade at a table and was about to go over, even just to say hi, until he saw that it was Gregory Langdon and Tommy White and their group of jocks, so he hung back. One of them looked younger, and was talking animatedly, illustrating something with the little ketchup packets as he spoke. He was cute. Nick turned away and then saw Liz and Tony and waved. They beckoned him over.

“I see the jocks are in,” Liz observed as Nick slid into their booth. “Don’t they ever hang out anywhere else?”

“Who’s that guy?” Nick asked, tilting his head at the cute one.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Tyson Ritter. Thinks he’s god’s gift or something, but he’s still only in middle school.”

“No way.” Nick watched Tyson for another couple of seconds before shrugging and turning back to them. “So you on for practice tomorrow, Tony? Party last night was pretty okay, but we could be tighter.”

“Sure, yeah. We still don’t have a bass player, though.”

“Well, I’d do it, but I can’t play drums _and_ bass.” Nick picked at his fries. It wasn’t as if he’d ordered because he was hungry. “I could teach any one of you that want to learn.”

Tony wrinkled his nose up in distaste. “I like guitar. I’ll stick with guitar.”

“Alright.” He turned to Liz. “Don’t suppose you’d want to learn bass?”

She snorted. “I got my hands full with French horn, Nick. No thanks.”

“You’d think, hanging with a bunch of band geeks, _someone_ would want to learn bass,” Nick sighed, clocking movement out of the corner of his eye as someone passed by the booth.

===*===

Tyson had got up to get a refill for his drink, and he was just fumbling in his pocket for change when he passed a table and heard a voice say _You’d think, hanging with a bunch of band geeks,_ _someone_ _would want to learn bass_ — for some reason, his eyes followed the sound, and as he passed he glanced at the dude who’d spoken.

His heart thumped faster. The dude was cute. He felt the sudden and almost overwhelming urge to learn to play bass. He’d stopped moving, he suddenly realised, and was standing with his mouth perhaps a little open as though he was going to speak.

“Yes?” the other guy at the table asked, hostility radiating from his every pore.

“Nothing, I um. Nothing.” Tyson caught the cute dude’s eye and ducked his head, feeling his cheeks get hot. “Just going to get a drink, is all.” He gestured, and started moving again.

When he got back to the table, he couldn’t help glancing over at the booth a few times. Maybe a few hundred times. Maybe he even moved his chair a little so he’d have a better view. “Who’re they?” he asked Mark, nodding over at the three of them.

Mark snorted. “Nerds. Our grade. Best thing to do is ignore them. It’s pretty easy. Look.” Mark turned his head away and back to the table’s conversation. He glanced over at Tyson after a couple of seconds. “See?”

Tyson laughed. “Jerkoff.” He jumped in on the debate about who was the best on the high school team, soon shouted down with crows of _Dude, you’re not even on it_ , and tried to hide the number of times he looked over at the nerds. He caught the cute one looking over a few times, but Tyson looked away again when that happened, fighting not to blush.

===*===

When Nick’s junior year band practice was really starting to take off, he heard the name Tyson Ritter again. In the locker room after gym, he’d hear the football jocks talking about the new kid on the team, and certain sections of the lunch room would buzz a little louder when he walked in.

Liz looked over at the football team’s table, one lunch break two days before the first game of the year. “God, would you look at those jerks? I don’t get what all those girls see in them.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Janie chipped in, holding her hamburger in both hands, dripping ketchup over the table. “They’re just big and beefy and stupid.”

“Look at that new one, the freshman,” Liz continued, pointing at Tyson. He was the centre of attention in one corner of the table, girls crowded around him having drawn their chairs up. “I mean, he’s _fat_ and he’s still getting girls.”

“I hear he has charisma,” Nick offered. Which, he had, because he’d overheard two sophomore cheerleaders talking about him, and if a _freshman_ can get sophomore cheerleaders saying he has charisma, he really has charisma.

“Shame he doesn’t have a brain,” Martin laughed.

“Yeah,” Janie grinned at him. “Being smart is _so_ hot.”

“If you two are going to be nauseating again, I am skipping lunch,” Nick declared.

“Nothing more sickening than nerds in love,” Liz agreed.

“Hey!” Janie protested.

Liz patted her arm. “Sorry. I know we’re best friends and all, but seriously.” Martin pulled Janie towards him until she was almost in his lap, and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re being all gross and we’re trying to eat,” Liz concluded, not missing a beat.

Martin poked Jason in the back. Jason choked. “Hey, leave me out of this. I said nothing.”

“Back me up here,” Martin wheedled. “You know how it is, your girlfriend’s being cute, you just wanna —” He looked around at the table. “Cuddle her,” he said, emphatically. “My god, you people and your _minds_.”

“Who got visuals they did _not_ want?” Tony asked, raising his hand. Liz, Nick and Jason raised theirs. Janie punched the nearest people on the arm. (Liz and Nick.)

It was just like every lunchtime. Except that lunchtime, Tyson Ritter walked past, squeezing between Nick’s chair and the guy at the table behind him, and Tyson’s hands were on Nick’s shoulders for a second, and Tyson muttered, “Sorry.”

Nobody else really noticed, except Liz.

===*===

Tyson’s locker was exactly one hundred and eighteen steps from Nick’s. He hadn’t followed Nick, he’d just happened to come out of class one day right after Nick walked past, and Nick’s locker was on the way. Tyson had kind of been half aware of counting until he’d got to his own locker and thought, _One hundred and eighteen_.

The football lunch table was exactly eight tables to the right and four down from the band nerd table. This was a healthy distance born of ancient and respected social codes; the athletes were better than the nerds, and as is only right, they get a better lunch table on the other side of the room. Thus the distance and superiority remains clear and intact, and everybody knows and keeps to their place.

It also, once Tyson angles it just so, gives him an excellent view from his usual seat of either Nick’s profile, Nick’s whole face or, on the days that made Tyson’s heart sink a little, the back of Nick’s head.

\------------  
Here are my notes for this one:

• Tyson never went to that party. Nick was just the hot guy Ty saw around school who he had a huge crush on. Nick left for college and ended up flunking out to be in a band with Mike, who he met at the Green Door and fell in love with.

• Ty moved to New York & moved in with Brian, who advertised a spare room. They're sleeping together, then Nick and Mike's band make it big and Ty is like, hey! that's the guy I had a crush on in school!

• ["You'll go to college. You'll _make something of yourself_ , son. Do you hear me?"

"Yeah, Dad, I hear you."]

• Ty went to UCLA on a full-ride football scholarship! He got really into the psychology classes there!

• Brian is a designer, he takes Tyson to a swanky party where Nick and his band also happen to be. Nick is like WOAH THAT GOOFY KID I LIKED IN HIGH SCHOOL GREW UP HOT and Tyson is like OH HOLY SHIT IT'S THAT DUDE I'VE HAD A HUGE CRUSH ON SINCE I WAS IN EIGHTH GRADE and there is awkward conversation and lots of blushing and they get hammered and fuck back at Nick's place and then they date for approximately _forever_.  



End file.
